You can check your credit score as often as you want without hurting it. When you look up your own score, the credit bureaus record it as a soft inquiry, and soft inquiries are excluded from score calculations entirely.1Experian. Hard Inquiry vs. Soft Inquiry: What’s the Difference? Daily, weekly, monthly — the frequency doesn’t matter. What matters is knowing the difference between the soft checks you do yourself and the hard inquiries that happen when a lender pulls your file.
Soft Inquiries vs. Hard Inquiries
Every time you pull your own score or report, the system logs a soft inquiry. Soft inquiries sit on your file for up to two years, but only you can see them. Lenders reviewing your report never do.2Equifax. Hard Inquiry vs Soft Inquiry: What’s the Difference?
Hard inquiries are different. Those happen when a lender pulls your credit because you applied for a loan, credit card, or line of credit. A hard inquiry can lower your score, though for most people a single one costs fewer than five points, and it stays visible to other lenders for up to two years.3myFICO. Do Credit Inquiries Lower Your FICO Score?2Equifax. Hard Inquiry vs Soft Inquiry: What’s the Difference?
Personal checks aren’t the only soft ones. Insurance quotes, employer background checks, promotional pre-approval offers, and credit card companies checking whether you qualify for a mailer all generate soft inquiries and leave your score alone.1Experian. Hard Inquiry vs. Soft Inquiry: What’s the Difference?
Where to Check Your Score for Free
You have three main routes, all of them soft inquiries.
Your bank or credit card issuer. Many major issuers, including American Express, Bank of America, Discover, and Wells Fargo, give cardholders free access to their FICO Score through the app or online portal. Scores typically refresh every 30 days.
The credit bureaus directly. Equifax offers a free monthly VantageScore 3.0 through its Core Credit program. Experian provides a free FICO Score through its credit monitoring service.4Equifax. Are FICO Scores and VantageScores Different?5Experian. The Difference Between VantageScore Credit Scores and FICO Scores
Third-party monitoring services. Free platforms pull scores from one or more bureaus using FICO or VantageScore models. They make money from advertising and referrals rather than charging you.
Why Your Score Looks Different on Different Sites
Don’t be alarmed if the number on your bank’s app doesn’t match the one on a bureau’s site. FICO and VantageScore are two separate scoring models, and each has multiple versions. Different sources may also pull from different bureaus, and your file at each bureau isn’t identical.4Equifax. Are FICO Scores and VantageScores Different? The differences are usually small, and none of the variation has anything to do with the act of checking.
One thing worth knowing: the “free credit score” your bank or a monitoring platform offers is a perk, not a legal entitlement. Federal law gives you free access to your credit report, not to your score.6Federal Trade Commission. Credit Scores In practice you can find a free score easily, but the legal right sits with the report.
Pull Your Free Weekly Credit Report Too
Your credit report is the underlying record — accounts, balances, payment history, public records — that the score is calculated from. Checking it costs nothing and creates a soft inquiry only.
You can pull a free report from each of the three major bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) once per week through AnnualCreditReport.com. This started as a temporary pandemic measure in 2020 and has since been made permanent.7Federal Trade Commission. You Now Have Permanent Access to Free Weekly Credit Reports AnnualCreditReport.com is the only site federally authorized to provide the free reports you’re entitled to by law. Equifax is offering an additional six free reports per year through 2026 through the same site.8Federal Trade Commission. Free Credit Reports
To pull a report, you’ll verify your identity with your full legal name, current and previous addresses, date of birth, and Social Security number. You may also face knowledge-based questions, such as confirming an old address or the monthly payment on a past loan. Wrong answers can lock you out temporarily, so have your records ready.9Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1022.123 – Appropriate Proof of Identity
If you ever want a report beyond the free options, bureaus can charge a maximum of $16.00 per report in 2026.10Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Fair Credit Reporting Act Disclosures
What Actually Does Lower Your Score
Since the whole reason people worry about checking their score is fear of lowering it, it’s worth knowing what actually can. Applying for credit triggers a hard inquiry, and hard inquiries fall under the “new credit” category of your FICO Score, which accounts for 10 percent of the total.11myFICO. How Are FICO Scores Calculated? That’s why a single hard inquiry usually costs only a handful of points.
Rate shopping for a mortgage, auto loan, or student loan is a special case. Scoring models bundle multiple hard inquiries for the same loan type within a short window into a single inquiry. FICO groups them over 14 to 45 days depending on the version; newer FICO versions use the 45-day window.3myFICO. Do Credit Inquiries Lower Your FICO Score? VantageScore uses a 14-day window for all hard inquiries regardless of loan type.12VantageScore. The Complete Guide to Your VantageScore 4.0 Credit Score Keep your rate comparisons inside a two-week span and they’ll count as one inquiry no matter which model the lender uses.
None of this touches the score you pull on yourself. Check it as often as you like.